


Jenna

by HermitLibrary_Archivist



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-05-26
Updated: 2008-05-26
Packaged: 2018-04-22 13:24:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4836902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HermitLibrary_Archivist/pseuds/HermitLibrary_Archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>By Vanessa Mullen.</p><p>What impact did Jenna's love have upon Blake's life?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Jenna

**Author's Note:**

> Previously Published in Straight Blakes 2.
> 
> Note from Judith and Aralias, the archivists: This story was originally archived at [Hermit.org Blake's 7 Library](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Hermit_Library), which was closed due to maintenance costs and lack of time. To preserve the archive, we began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in August 2015. We posted announcements about the move and emailed authors as we imported, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this author, please contact us using the e-mail address on [Hermit.org Blake's 7 Library collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/hermitlibrary/profile). 
> 
> This work has been backdated to 26th of May 2008, which is the last date the Hermit.org archive was updated, not the date this fic was written. In some cases, fics can be dated more precisely by searching for the zine they were originally published in on [Fanlore](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Main_Page).

The bar was quite a high-class place, at least as far as bars on Gauda Prime went. Deva stepped through the door with some distaste. The floor was muddy underfoot: the boot-scrapings of the dozens of miners who passed through here every day. The walls were bare, unpainted wood and the dying light from the fire in the corner cast cast twisted, elongated shadows on the planks. Where the planks warped, the wind came in uninvited. Some day, perhaps, a proper building would be erected, but until then, prefabricated buildings were expensive, and timber was cheap.

      In the far corner, Deva could see the bar's only occupant - resting with his elbows slumped on the table, head between his hands - Blake was obviously drunk.

      Deva wondered briefly whether the journey out here had been worth it. Fifteen kilometers out from the base, and this was the fourth bar he'd had to look in before finally locating his friend. He plumped himself down on the bench across from Blake, and looked across to stare into the empty face. Blake was unshaven, dishevelled; the scar over his eye looked dirty. In fact his whole appearance was that of a man who didn't give a damn how he looked.

      "You can't go on like this forever," Deva said softly.

      Blake raised one eyebrow and stared at him. "Why not?"

      "There's work to be done. There's people depending on you." He tried to convey a sense of urgency. "You've got to come back - you can't dwell in the past forever. She's gone, Blake. You've got to accept it."

      "Maybe I don't want to accept it," Blake said roughly. "Maybe I don't give a damn anymore. Maybe I just want to stay in this bar and rot."

      "Jenna wouldn't have wanted it that way."

      "How the hell can you know what Jenna wanted?"

      "She chose to follow you," Deva replied firmly. "That's all I need to know. She chose the same path I did. And now, you're letting down her and everyone else who followed you. We need you, Blake."

      Had it always been that way? Blake wondered. Had he always had to live for every whim of those who needed him? Had he always organized his life around other people? Had there ever been a time when he'd done something purely and simply because he wanted to do it himself? Yes, perhaps there had been. Or even then, had he only been doing what Jenna wanted?

      

      

      

Being on board Liberator was exhilarating; Blake knew it was going to be a long time before the novelty wore off. At the same time, it was a potentially explosive way of living. Four men and two women. Anyone could do the basic arithmetic. Or perhaps that should have been four men and one woman. Cally had a curious sexless quality to her, as though the idea of being attracted to a man had never even occurred to her. Perhaps it was some trait of the Auronar and he was failing to read her body language accurately, but it seemed more likely that she simply wasn't attracted to non-telepaths. Whatever the reason, apart from Vila, who seemed to be drawn automatically to anything in skirts, the attention of all the men on Liberator was focussed solely on Jenna. Her own preference was obvious. Blake knew, if he asked her, she would sleep with him, but he hesitated. Any relationship that he had with Jenna was bound to cause jealousy in the other men. The situation on Liberator was quite tense enough already, without having any additional reasons for resentment from his ever-reluctant crew. So, he chose celibacy, and believed that he could live with it.

      But Jenna had had other ideas.

      

      

      

Not for the first time, Blake wondered why the Liberator's designers had not had the forethought to put some kind of food dispenser on the flight deck. Dying for a cup of coffee, he left Vila on watch and went down to the crew room. At least the coffee there was drinkable. Well, to call it coffee was probably being generous: it was some kind of alien beverage which had a flavour vaguely reminiscent of coffee. And at that, it was better than most of the other things that the food dispenser had to offer.

      He walked through the door of the crew room, and stopped short - Jenna and Avon were standing close together in the corner, obviously discussing something private. Jenna looked up as he entered, and smiled. 

      "Blake, she said, coming to her feet, "I get the impression you've been avoiding me."

      He started slightly. It was true; he had been trying to avoid her during her off-watch periods. The physical attraction he felt for Jenna was growing; it was becoming extremely difficult to to keep his hands off her.

      She came closer, and touched him lightly on the shoulder. "Blake, I really think we need to talk."

      He grasped her hand firmly, and put it back down beside her waist. "Jenna, it won't work." he said determinedly. "If you and I pair off, what's everyone else going to think?"

      "What?" drawled a voice from the corner. "Worried about your reputation, Blake?"

      "No," he said, angry in spite of himself. Avon always had the knack of riling him. "It's not good for the group dynamics of a small number of people, if some of us pair off and the rest are left... Well - you know what I mean."

      Avon grinned. "Oh, yes. I know all too well. Does it worry you that much if the rest of us have to go without. Be careful, Blake - your halo needs polishing."

      Jenna interrupted. "Blake," she said, with conviction, "you may be a saint, but I'm not. You may be capable of remaining celibate for the next two centuries - but not me. Look, we have to resolve this situation one way or the other."

      Her forthrightness surprised him. Although Blake didn't look on himself as a prude, it wasn't a subject he cared to discuss in public. "Jenna," he said, taking a slight step back.

      She followed him. "Blake, if you don't give me what I want, I'll go elsewhere."

      "You wouldn't," he said, automatically.

      "I would."

      "She would," agreed Avon, with a smile. He hadn't even left his seat, but Blake was aware of a sense of lazy expectation about him.

      "Well, Blake?" asked Jenna.

      "I don't believe you," he said hoarsely. "You're not that kind of woman."

      She gave him a half-mocking look and walked over to Avon, who came to his feet to meet her. "How would you know what kind of a woman I am?" she asked Blake.

      Avon placed his arms casually around her shoulders. The two of them embraced, falling into a kiss that seemed easy and natural. Their bodies moved closer together, and Blake couldn't stand it any more.

      "Jenna!" he barked.

      She disengaged herself from the kiss, without any undue haste, and turned to face him.

      "All right," he said furiously, aware he was over-reacting, knowing that he was giving himself away to both of them, and unable to prevent it. "All right! But not now. Later."

      "As long as it's not too much later," said Jenna, and casually left the room, her hips swaying in a motion that screamed at him.

      Blake stared at Avon for a minute. Avon, nonchalant, seemed entirely unperturbed by the entire exchange. Sitting down again, he lifted his feet to cross them on the table, and looked at Blake with some slight amusement.

      "And where does all that leave you?" Blake demanded.

      Avon leaned back and cocked his head slightly to one side. "I can take it or leave it. For the moment, I think she'd rather have you. I'm in no rush." A smile flitted across his face. "She'll get fed up of you eventually."

      

      

      

Blake spent the rest of his watch with a bad case of the fidgets. He was unnaturally aware of Jenna at her console; of her every movement; of the way the light caught her hair; of the way her dress emphasized the movement of her breasts; the shape of her legs; everything about her. Anger also burned at him. He detested the way she'd used him, manipulated him, backed him into a corner. When his watch came to an end, he left for his cabin without even looking at her.

      Half-an-hour later, he was still feeling no better. He flipped from one emotion to another, wanting to make love to her, wanting to strangle her. He tried to concentrate on an engineering text, but got precisely nowhere. After re-reading the same paragraph three times over, he gave up and switched the viewer off in disgust. He paced up and down his cabin, frustration eating at him; should he seek Jenna out - or should he wait for her to come to him? He wasn't even sure what he'd do when he saw her next: kiss her or hit her.

      A knock on the door brought him round abruptly. He slammed at the entry panel. Jenna stood in the doorway, blue dress flowing from bare shoulders to the floor. Her hair, brushed out, shone in a golden halo around her head. Blake hesitated no longer.

      He seized her hungrily, arms pulling her close, lips feeding off hers, an embrace that fed off every frustrated passion he'd felt over the past few months. Jenna's mouth opened under his; her arms pulled him tight. Her tongue forced its way between his lips, and he could feel her accelerated breathing, the gentle moan as she pressed closer to him.

      He broke free abruptly. "Don't you think we ought to close the door?"

      She looked blankly at him for a moment, pupils wide and reflecting his face. Then she laughed slightly, and nodded.

      Blake stepped aside to press the door panel once more, and as he did so, felt her hands running down his back, smoothing their way up his spine, teasing the hair on the back of his neck. He turned around, grabbed her, crushing her close to him, pressing her head against his shoulder. She said something, the words coming out muffled against his tunic.

      "What?"

      "I said," she repeated, her head lifted away from his chest now, "I see you're no longer in a bad temper."

      "No," Blake said seriously. "I don t think I could stay in a bad temper with you for long."

      Her fingers started working at the fastenings of his shirt. Framing her face with his hands, he tilted her head to look up into his eyes. "I'd always thought," he said teasingly, "that one was supposed to start these affairs with a romantic dinner by candlelight."

      "Candlelight be damned," she said. "I've waited months for this, Blake. You can give me the romantic dinner afterwards."

      "Oh," he said, deliberately pretending to misunderstand. "And what is it you've been waiting for all these months?"

      A hand slipped down to feel the bulge between his legs. "This," she said, emphatically.

      "And that's all you want?" he said, somehow vaguely disappointed. "Is that all you want from me? Wouldn't any of them have done for that?"

      "No," she said, serious now. She slid her arms around his waist. "I want it with you, Blake. Not Gan, not Vila. Not even Avon, although I admit he's attractive. With you. That's what makes the difference. You're the one I respect."

      "Just respect, Jenna?" he chided her mildly.

      Her eyes danced. "Ask me that again in an hour. And then maybe I'll say that I love you."

      

      

      

Blake stared morosely into his drink. She'd said she loved him. They'd said that and far more to each other over the course of the two years they'd had together. It had seemed eventually that they almost thought and acted as one person, sharing feelings too deep to be expressed in mere words. And then he'd lost her.

      At first he'd thought it would be easy for them all to make contact after Star One. His own life capsule had been picked up by a ship bound for Epheron; he'd contacted the Liberator, and everything had been going smoothly. Then the ship he'd been travelling on was attacked by a straggler from the Andromedan fleet. It was a miracle that anyone had survived on the ship at all. Dead and wounded lay everywhere in the twisted wreckage; he'd acquired a broken arm to add to his broken ribs, and his teleport bracelet had been damaged beyond repair. It had taken them months to limp to the nearest planet at sub-light speeds. They'd never reached Epheron. None of them.

      After that, it had been one disaster after another, fleeing from the authorities, moving from one planet to another, until finally he'd come here, to Gauda Prime, and here, all his dreams seemed to be ending.

      He tossed down the rest of the glass, heedless of Deva's disapproving stare. 

      Gauda Prime: it'd been here that he finally found Jenna again.

      Another time. Another bar. He'd had an appointment to meet a gun-runner, to make arrangements for the next shipment of weapons. Sometimes it was better to make deals in person, it allowed you to size up who you were dealing with, do any preliminary transactions, examine samples of the merchandise. Of course, nothing ever protected you totally against double-dealings, but some things helped.

      The bar was crowded, just as Blake wanted it. In a crowded room, one deal more or less going on in a corner would attract nobody's attention. He pushed his way through the crowd to the bar and ordered himself a drink. He didn't know who he'd be meeting; they would find him. He'd given a description of the clothes he'd be wearing, and that would be sufficient. It had not been felt necessary to exchange names on either side. Any name used, by either party, would be an alias.

      In spite of the anonymity of the crowd, Blake felt uneasy. Perhaps, it was just the heat, after the cold outside - Gauda Prime in winter was no place for travelling in the open; perhaps, it was the feeling of being surrounded by strangers. Although he half-recognised many faces from his irregular trips into town, there was no one here that Blake knew well. While this was a useful place for gathering information, he didn't consider it to be safe. It was a necessary risk though; any bounty hunter or rebel worth his salt needed to keep up on people passing through the area. The bartender was a frequent source of information. Blake paid him regularly and accepted it as a necessary business expense.

      Drink in hand, he was halfway back to his seat when a fist launched at him out of nowhere, catching him on the jaw. He staggered sideways, dropped his drink, ducked low to avoid the next punch, and swung around to face the man who'd attacked him.

      "How's it feel to be on the receiving end, bounty hunter?" snarled a voice.

      "What's it to you?" demanded Blake. He reached out and grabbed the other man's shirt, jerked him forward abruptly, and landed a punch on the side of his face. His opponent kicked hard, catching him on the shin.

      "What's it to me? You shot my mate. Remember?"

      That had to have been Crystos. Ironic. After all, Crystos had been seeking the bounty on one Roj Blake.

      The next punch caught him in the belly, winding him badly. Blake staggered back, then managed to rush forward and grapple his opponent. This fight was getting serious. Blake worked for a stranglehold, and managed to get a firm grip on the other man's throat. The sound of breaking glass distracted him for a moment.

      He staggered sharply as something sliced into his eye, cutting down the side of his face. He reeled back, hands clutched to his face, losing all sight of what was happening around him. The voices of the crowd were loud: chanting, yelling, screaming for the other man to come and finish him off. Broken glass in hand, the other man advanced towards Blake. And then, without warning, a shot took the miner full in the chest. He staggered back and crashed hard to the floor.

      "Anyone else?" demanded a voice from the back of the room.

      Blake spun around in amazement. Even with his left eye filmed with blood, he knew who it was - Jenna.

      "Take it easy." She gestured to him with one hand. "Get out of here while I cover you."

      Needing no second warning, Blake backed his way cautiously out, avoiding the rest of the crowd, making sure Jenna had a clear field of fire. With one last careful look around the bar, she stepped out to join him.

      "So you're the man who's seeking to buy guns," she said conversationally.

      "Yes," he agreed. "Although, if I d known you were the person who was going to be selling them..." His voice trailed off. "Do you know how glad I am to see you?"

      "Reunions can wait," she said practically. "Let's get a look at that eye."

      They made their way down the street to where Blake had left his flyer. Even in that short distance, the chill wind bit through the coat he was wearing. He held one hand over his eye, trying to staunch the flow of blood. Small eddies of snow whipped around their feet, and whirled to lose themselves around the sides of nearby buildings.

      "Nice planet you picked here," Jenna commented.

      "It suffices," he said shortly. The shock was wearing off now, and the area around his eye was incredibly painful.

      Once inside the flyer, door closed against the weather, she forced him to let her examine the injury more closely. The first-aid pack under the seat contained a quantity of sterile swabs, and she cleaned the cut, ignoring his gasps of pain.

      "It's all right," she said. "It's not too deep. You'll need a couple of stitches to hold it together, but it's not going to be too serious. It's going to spoil your good looks, though."

      "Does that matter to you?"

      She slid an arm around him and held him close. "No. I don't care how you look. As long as you're the same Roj Blake underneath it."

      He hoped he was still the same man. He liked to think that he was. Sometimes it had been so hard to be sure. He had nothing to relate to any longer; the people he had known on Earth were all dead; Liberator and her crew were lost to him. Once he had been confident in his beliefs, now, sometimes, they seemed simply to be an old habit that he clung to for the sake of having an identity.

      With Jenna beside him, everything suddenly seemed so much simpler. She believed in him, not in his cause, but in Blake himself. He smiled in sudden relief; people were what mattered, that had always been the cornerstone of his creed. If you trusted people, they lived up to your expectations. If they failed, it wasn't for lack of trying. Maybe that was why he'd never killed Travis. Deep down, Blake had never been able to escape the belief that any human being was capable of redemption. If they were dead, that possibility of redemption was gone for ever. Jenna - Jenna and the others - had helped reinforce that belief. The Federation's lowest rejects, but they had achieved so much. Even Avon, embezzler, self-professed cynic and fervent defender of his own interests, had never let Blake down. The longer he'd been away from them all, the harder it had become to sustain his conviction. Some days now, all that really kept him going was hatred of the Federation. Hate was easier, it didn't require faith. Jenna was his touchstone: seeing her beside him, he could again believe that anything was possible. 

      "I missed you," he said, a ragged edge catching at his voice.

      Her hand touched his hair lightly. "Me too." Then she became serious. "We need to get that cut treated before it gets any worse. The antibiotics should prevent any infection, but I don't know if this pack was produced with the local bugs in mind."

      

      

      

The cut had become infected, apparently he'd been lucky not to lose the eye as well. Blake rubbed abstractedly at the scar, caught Deva's eye on him and stopped. It was a habit he'd developed when he was worrying about something, and these days he seemed to spend an awful lot of time worrying.

      

      

      

"Where are we going?" Jenna had asked practically.

      Blake gave her the co-ordinates from memory, he never left information of that kind in the flight computer. She took the flyer up, and then set a semi-random course on the auto-pilot. 

      "So," she said, returning her attention to him once more, "what have you been doing all this time, and why have you become a popular target for a knife act?"

      "Believe it or not, I'm a bounty hunter."

      "Should I be worried?" she asked lightly. "The last time I checked, I was worth at least a million credits."

      "Very worried. Didn't you know I'm the local bogey man?" He added, more seriously, "I killed a man who came looking for me a couple of months ago. There was a bounty on him and I claimed it - I needed the money, and it gave an obvious reason for killing him. Since then I've gained the reputation of being a bounty hunter."

      "That doesn't seem like you."

      It wasn't like him, or at least, it wasn't like the man she'd known before. He hadn't had to kill a man since Crystos; dressing rough and looking mean was usually enough to maintain his image, but sometimes the temptation was there. It was easy to convince himself that there were some men on Gauda Prime who deserved killing, to let the promise of desperately needed money lure him.

      "It gives me an obvious excuse for wanting weapons and asking questions about possible rebels; but it also got me into the situation that you rescued me from."

      "Does it worry you?"

      A perceptive question, but then Jenna always had been perceptive. "Sometimes," he said honestly. "You play a part too long, and it begins to take you over."

      "As you're capable of worrying about it, you're obviously still Roj Blake."

      He smiled, as the flyer turned a tight corner over a firebreak in the plantation below. Jenna was good for his soul. Blake lurched sideways, catching at the edge of his seat, as the flyer came out of the turn. "Couldn't you have settled for a slightly gentler course?"

      "At least we know no one's following us now."

      He sat back and rested for a few moments. There was so much that he wanted to ask her, that it was hard to know where to start. One question in particular, but he wasn't sure that he'd ever be able to ask Jenna that one. It had been over a year since he'd last seen her - had there been anyone else? Was there still anyone else? He'd always believed that women should be free to go where they pleased, but surprised himself by the intensity of the jealousy that hit him when he thought about her with another man. Avon's memory intruded for a moment, and he realised that he had to know. "Jenna, did you ever make it back to the Liberator?" He stared forward at the endless carpet of trees, not wanting to see her face when she replied.

      "No. I was picked up by a hospital ship after the worst of the fighting was over. I told Zen where we were headed, and hoped that Liberator would be able to pick me up there."

      "But they didn't come back for you?"

      "It wasn't that. I never got there. There was this young Federation space captain..."

      "Oh," Blake said bleakly, and knew that he'd given himself away.

      "Not like that," Jenna replied tartly. "He recognised me, and it put him in a dilemma. It was his duty to turn me in, but he also felt he owed us something for the battle against the Andromedans. He let me go in the end, but he took my teleport bracelet - reckoned I couldn't do the Federation too much harm without my ship."

      "There's always been good people within the Federation," Blake said seriously. "The tragedy is that they eventually get corrupted or broken by the system."

      "Perhaps. Anyway, after that, I eventually returned to smuggling. Took on a pilot's job, got enough to start making payments on a small ship of my own; now I'm gun-running. It's a living."

      "I could offer you a better job."

      "With you? What are the benefits?"

      Blake tried to think of a convincing reason for her to want to join him, and then decided to stick with the honest approach. "Lousy hours, minimal pay, no pension, and an outside chance on saving the galaxy."

      "If this was a viscast drama, I suppose I'd say, 'Great, when do I start?'. As it is..."

      The pain throbbed down his cheekbone, but he forced himself to wait for her to continue.

      "I'll stay," she said with a slight tone of resignation. "You always did need someone to look after you. Just don't get me killed."

      "Do you want to share my room?" He had to ask, and now was as good a time as any.

      There was a smile in her voice as she answered. "Just try and keep me out!"

      

      

      

It had been good, there was no doubt of that. Maybe Jenna had had other lovers; if she had, she'd never admitted to them. What was certain was that she still felt the same way about him, and, just as important, she still believed in him.

      

      

      

"Stop that!" Blake gasped as she tickled him down his side. The light touch of her fingers on his bare skin was making him buck and twist under her. The fact that she was sitting on top of him, impaled upon his cock didn't make it any easier for him to control her actions.

      "Oh? Would you rather I did this instead?" Suiting action to words, Jenna bent over and took her tongue on a tour around his right nipple. The rough texture was horribly stimulating. His nipples weren't normally sensitive, unless he was extremely aroused. Right now, extremely aroused only began to describe the way he felt. "Jenna!" he gasped, and seized her buttocks in his hands, pulling her down hard onto him.

      Finally taking pity on him, she released the nipple and began to move, her inner muscles caressing him as she glided up and down his shaft. Getting caught up in the motion, she accelerated, leaning forward so that the tips of her full, heavy breasts brushed against his chest; her nipples sweeping against his with every surge of their combined bodies. She moaned out loud at the stimulation. Blake could feel himself rushing towards a climax, felt Jenna squeeze him tightly as she came herself, and the two of them collapsed onto the bed in a tangle of sweaty limbs.

      Later, she ran her fingers into his hair, and kissed him gently on the lips. He opened his eyes and smiled at her, then wrapped an arm around her waist and held her close.

      "Stay with me," he whispered.

      "I already said I would."

      He held her tighter. "I know; it's just that having lost you once, I can't bear the thought of losing you again."

      "I'll stay. I think I'd have stayed even if it wasn't for this." She squeezed him to emphasise what she meant.

      "Why?"

      She looked pensive for a moment. "I'll say this once, Roj, and then you can forget it. I was running, drifting - being with you again makes me remember what it's like to have a purpose in life. You actually care about what happens to the world at large; you not only care, you're prepared to do something about it. That makes you a very rare man in my experience."

      

      

      

She had chased the darkness away. With Jenna there, he'd known what he was really fighting for, saw individuals once more instead of faceless masses. After too long a period of hard struggle, he'd remembered how to laugh again. She had seen him as the man she'd first fallen in love with, and with her, he could do no less than be that man. Now, guilt and bitterness ate at him. "It's my fault," he said to the thin air in front of Deva's face. "If I hadn't persuaded her to stay, she'd never have been killed."

      "Blake." Deva was trying to trying to say something. "It wasn't your fault." His fair hair was disordered, almost falling into his eyes. Deva swept it back up again with a practised sweep of his hand. He leaned forward, and the hair promptly flopped down again. "There's something you should know." From the look on his face, it didn't seem likely to be anything that Blake wanted to hear.

      "Well," he asked dispiritedly.

      "There was a bounty posted today for Jefferson."

      "Why Jefferson in particular?" Blake knew the man slightly. He'd been recruited by Iglesas a couple of months ago. A dispossessed farmer who'd killed a miner, Jefferson didn't have much in the way of useful skills, but he was learning to work in the tracking gallery.

      Deva swallowed nervously. "Seems he was in the habit of selling the authorities bits of information when he was short of money. The last bit of information he gave them didn't work out right. He gave them the flight path of a gun-runner. When it blew up taking half a dozen ships with it, they figured he'd set them up.

      "Jenna," he said flatly.

      "Yes. He sold her. He might not even have known who she was."

      Blake's hand tightened around his mug. Too trusting. He'd always been too trusting. Now one of this grab-bag of strangers that he'd enlisted into his cause had destroyed Jenna. Not himself, that would have been a fitting punishment, but Jenna. Jenna was dead, and he would never trust again.

      Maybe Jefferson had had his reasons; maybe he'd needed the money for something. Maybe he was still loyal after a fashion - he hadn't given away Blake's identity. Or maybe he was just selling information in tiny bits, hoping to make as much as possible. Too many maybes, and Blake didn't care in any case.

      He slammed the mug down hard upon the table, watching as it cracked, and the liquid seeped out of the side. Flowing slowly out like his life's blood. He would never be the same man again.

      "How much," he asked Deva, "is the bounty for Jefferson - dead?"


End file.
